Follow the way of water

“That which offers no resistance, overcomes the hardest substances. That which offers no resistance can enter where there is no space.

Few in the world can comprehend the teachings without words, or understand the value of non-action”

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 43.

Two weeks ago, I touched upon the importance of the flow state in performance, and how a Mckinsey study concluded that it could enhance performance by up to five times. When you have access to that kind of a state, you not only transcend challenges in your day to day work life. Instead, you actually welcome them and respond in a manner that goes way beyond expectations! From an organizational perspective, the Mckinsey study identified three important pre-requisites for being in flow:

A)????Intellectual Quotient

B)????Emotional Quotient

C)????Meaning Quotient

We are returning to the discussion on flow state this week, to understand what it means for an individual. And just like you need to go to the mountains to understand the flow of rivers, I am going to explore this topic through the amazing Chinese philosophy of Taoism (or Daoism), believed to be founded by philosopher Lao Tzu (6th-4th century BC). The Tao Te Ching, which means ‘The Way of Power’, is their guiding book.

Tao (or Dao) is defined as the way of the universe , and Taoist philosophy asserts that all creatures must live in harmony with the Universe’s energy, which is called ‘Ch’I’ or ‘qi’. Taoist books guide followers on how to achieve this harmony. Incidentally, Taoism is also the source of the ‘yin and yang’ philosophy – that nothing in the universe makes sense by itself.

“The Tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name”.

It is interesting how this merges with the Vedantic concept of consciousness I discussed in a previous blog . In Vedanta, we define the human body as five layers, and consciousness being our only true nature. Even Vedantic philosophers emphasise that this true consciousness or Sat Chit Ananda can be experienced in a state of enlightenment. But it cannot be described in words.

Flow is a powerful concept that was introduced by Taoist philosophy. They call it Wu Wei – or in other words “non-action”, “effortless action” or even “Action of non-action”. As I postulated earlier, it is a phase when you are engaged in tremendous effort and encountering the most insurmountable of challenges, but from your perspective, there are no second thoughts, doubt/fear, exhaustion or even sense of time. ?

Where our current ecosystem fails miserably is to involve everyone in a rat race. We grow up believing that life is a struggle, and we need to put sincere hard work and experience pain in order to be successful. Taoism is opposed to Western philosophy on its argument that if your work seems like effort, or you feel compelled to do something that does not harmonise with your inner self, then you are driving in the wrong lane. ?

Unlike the associations you generally would have vis-à-vis China, Taoism teaches the power of gentleness . Forcing yourself to do a task is struggle, energy sapping and damaging. It also leads to, sleepless nights, anxiety, stress and burnout – the source of several illnesses in modern society. But in flow, a person doesn’t just manage the task well, he/she knows how to balance action and non-action.

The Taoist philosophy compares life to a river, that runs its course. As ‘egocentric humans’ we feel we can control its flow, or even swim against the current. But our approach should be to navigate the current and flow with it instead.

Is slogging worth it?

There are ifs and buts to that question. We have seen it used in cricket terminology often, when some overs are slog overs. But you also know that a person who is adept at batting will be a better slogger than a pinch hitter. And it works even better with a ‘set batsman’ rather than two new players at the crease.

I will argue similarly, that startups that became unicorns had very passionate founders who were focused on creating a valuable company. Hustle alone is not the secret of their success. These entrepreneurs are bound to have found a state of flow with their core business idea and found great excitement in the execution, howsoever challenging.

It reminds me of the time when I took Science post my 10th standard, and our teacher used to tell us, “To be an IITian, you need to put in 14 hours of study a day!”

It’s another matter how I, quite amusingly, tried to calculate where those 14 hours would come from! And I cannot fault myself for not making the effort. Of course, I am not an IITian, though I have an engineering degree. But the point I am making is different. There are people who may manage to put in those kind of hours quite happily, and not feel any stress at all. And at the other extreme, there are people who will simply decide, “This is not my thing”, and move on to the vocation they find interesting, say a creative field like advertising. These viewpoints are polar opposites when it comes to vocation. But both sets of people are smart enough to have chosen flow.

The problem comes with that set of people who will struggle hard to get into IIT, even if it does not interest them. I saw parents put their kids through expensive tuitions, and even take a one year sabbatical from studies post 12th to do their engineering. The approach may have worked for some, but one thing is for sure – few parents seem to be considering ‘flow’ as the criteria to take a decision. It is the lure of engineering degrees. Worse, in those years, was engineering + MBA. A lot of people just decided it was to be their future, because of the ‘packages’ that this combination promised.

“The best people are like water, which benefits all things and does not compete with them. It stays in lowly places that others reject. This is why it is so similar to the Way (Dao).” Lao Tzu

Those who do not understand flow are bound to struggle in their careers in the initial stages. But life has its own uncanny ways of guiding us to our flow. My current career trajectory of content, communication, marketing and research, for instance, may seem very different from where I actually saw myself during my college days. But trust me, every bit of my experience of ‘flowing with and against the river’s current’ helps me in my work presently.

And today I can relate to the Taoist principle strongly. A challenge in a field of your choosing is an extraordinary adrenaline rush. The effort is not absent. Instead, the effort becomes your greatest reward. And that is what life should be all about. The river presents many currents, but you need to find the current that suits you. At times, it may seem a difficult choice, because others are choosing what appear to be more ‘lucrative currents’. But there is a unique path that the universe is showing you towards your happiness – loud and clear. You only need to drown out the noise, keep calm and listen. ??